Mammoth Mountain Opens THURSDAY
Mammoth Mountain, historically the last Sierra resort to close for the winter, will be the first one to open this season when it starts spinning its lifts on Thursday, Nov. 10.
Thanks in part to a Halloween-weekend storm that dropped two feet of snow at the 11,053-foot summit, Mammoth has enough coverage to open seven runs, including Dave’s, Cornice and Climax, and three lifts (Broadway Express, Face Express and the Panorama Gondola), providing more than 2,100 vertical feet of top-to-bottom skiing and snowboarding. However, only two runs, Broadway and Saddle Bowl, will be machine groomed.
The opening-day activities kick off with the first-chair ribbon cutting at 8:30 a.m. and continue with the annual beer toast at 11 a.m. at the top of the gondola. Live music and limited food service will be available all day at McCoy Station, while Tusks Bar and Broadway Marketplace will provide food and drink at the Main Lodge.
Elsewhere in the Sierra, other resorts are waiting for more storms and/or colder weather to get their operations going. Kirkwood, Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows and Northstar are among the resorts shooting for a Nov. 18 opening